Yahoo passwords hacked

Over 450,000 Yahoo passwords and usernames have been stolen from Yahoo.

On July 11 2012, a hacker group calling itself the D33ds Company used an SQL injection to take passwords from Yahoo Contributor Network, an online publishing service owned by Yahoo. The hacked Yahoo passwords were then posted on the D33Ds Company website. In regards to the attack, the hacker group said: “We hope that the parties responsible for managing the security of this subdomain will take this as a wake-up call, and not as a threat.”

Yahoo has confirmed that account information has been stolen in a security breach. In a statement the company said: “We are fixing the vulnerability that led to the disclosure of this data, changing the passwords of the affected Yahoo users and notifying the companies whose user accounts may have been compromised.”

Google, Microsoft and AOL affected

As a result of the Yahoo password hack, protected information for such services as Google, AOL and Microsoft are also thought to have been compromised. If affected, users have been notified by the respective company to change their details.

This is not the first setback Yahoo has faced over the past few years. The firing of CEO Carol Bartz and the resignation of her replacement Scott Thompson has left the company leaderless, while Yahoo also had to lay off 14 percent of its workforce earlier this year.